FALL 2019 Vol. LVI No. 2 AdirondackPEEKS MAGAZINE OF THE ADIRONDACK FORTY-SIXERS Front Cover: Milky Way at sunrise from Ampersand Mountain. Photo credit: Thomas A. Lizzio #5275W Inside Cover: Heart Lake. Photo credit: Joseph Rector #7648 Contents

2 President’s Report – Siobhán Carney-Nesbitt #5930W 4 Lunch with Laura Waterman - A Keeper of the Flame – Chuck Schwerin #942 with Laura Waterman Foreword to the 2019 Edition of Forest and Crag – Tony Goodwin #211 10 Talking Points: A Conversation with Colin O’Brady 18 From the Archives... On the Laying Down of Stones – Ira Smith #1969 20 Mountain Vignettes An Alaskan Perspective on Finishing the 46 – Jackie Keating #11053 Remembering Grace – Robert “Doc” Browning #1500 Six Peaks, Five Years, and Four Lifelong Friends – Elaine Portalupi #9146 30 Club News Trailhead Steward Program – Fran Shumway #7097 Annual Report of the Treasurer – Phil Corell #224W Trailmasters Report: 2019 – Tom Fine #7138 48th Outdoor Skills Workshop – Bill Lundy #3310 and Don McMullen #224W 40 Letters 41 In Memoriam High Peak Bloom. View from North Colden towards Marcy. Photo credit Manual Palacios, www.Zone3Photo.com FALL 2019 | 3 Lunch with Laura Waterman

his past spring I received an email from SUNY Press in Albany, asking Tif I would be interested in receiving a copy of the iconic Forest and Crag: A History of Hiking, Trailblazing, and Adventure in the Northeast Mountains, penned by Laura and Guy Waterman #670W. This new edition, honoring the 30th anniversary of its initial publication, included a fresh foreword by Tony Goodwin #211. Abashed at never having owned a version of any vin- tage, I eagerly agreed. When it arrived I couldn’t help but appreciate not only the prodigious research that went into the generation of the work, but how accessible it was for a reader to pick and choose random chapters to digest, a smorgasbord as delectable as a walk through my local Ithaca Farmer’s Mar- ket. You don’t grow up with a passion for climbing in the Northeast without

encountering the Watermans. I had quoted from their book: Backwoods Guy and Laura Waterman at the sugar shed near Ethics in a previous article for PEEKS (“Searching for Wilderness,” Spring the new cord frames. (Barra homestead 4-8-1990) 2017) and knew their reputation as noted rock climbers and mountaineers, environmentalists, authors, and successful homesteaders in the Scott-and- Helen-Nearing mode. I also was familiar with the story of how Guy chose to orchestrate the final chapter of his life. Thanks to a generous email introduction from Goodwin I gave Laura a by Chuck Schwerin #942 call. Was she familiar with PEEKS? Would she consider working with me on an article for the magazine? She recalled early mimeographed versions when Guy first became a member and asked if I would send her a more recent issue. We had, quite literally, walked so many of the same trails and shared similar passions, and though we had never met, I felt I was talking to someone I’d known for years. “If you want to understand my story, I suggest you read my memoir, Losing the Garden,” she said. I did so, stunned

4 | ADIRONDACK PEEKS Lunch A Keeper with of the Flame Laura Waterman

by the opening pages that described her last morning with Guy. While the reading answered many questions about their relationship, it raised new ones as well—highly personal. Perhaps too personal for a first meeting that we set up for later in the summer. At noon one day this August I knocked on the door of her cozy cabin in East Corinth, Vermont. “Find it okay?” she asked warmly, eyes sparkling. I was scarcely in the door before she placed in my hand the familiar orange flyer Grace Hudowalski #9 sent to all aspiring 46ers to fill out in anticipation of their registering with the club. Neatly penned were the details of Laura’s 31 climbs, all done with Guy, mostly during winter months in the early 1970s. My first thought was, Could I get Laura up the peaks still remaining? After all, she’s only a spry 79, and still climbing, albeit more sedately. Guy Waterman was well known for his passion for the White Mountains,

Guy and Laura Waterman at the sugar shed near the new cord frames. (Barra homestead 4-8-1990)

with Laura Waterman

FALL 2019 | 5 “A classic, a book that people will read for many years to come.” Bill McKibben $24.00 U.S. Laura Waterman “Suicide is prepared within the heart, as is Losing the Garden L a great work of art.” Albert orestCamus and Crag documents the history of our Northeast

In 1971 Laura and Guy Waterman decidedmountains as that history slowly evolved from mountains “It’s pretty rare to read a manuscript and find yourself OS I F to give up all the conveniences“daunting of life and terrible” to “mountains sublime” to mountains as thinking — this is a classic, a book that people will read homestead — living on the land, for the land — in a cabin in the mountains of Vermont. for many years to come. It’s not just that Guy Waterman For nearly three decades they“places created a for recreation.” In the introductory note to Part Five in was a fascinating figure, or that he and his wife were deliberate life, eating food they grew them­ selves, using no running waterthe or electricity. first edition of Forest and Crag (1989), the authors maintain among the most interesting homesteaders of our time. It was an extreme that most ofthat us can onlytrue “history,” as opposed to “chronology,” requires being Quite beyond all that, Laura Waterman has written a imagine sustaining for a week or two. universal story about marriage, depression, tenderness, The end of their marriageable came on toa make generalizations that place chronological events in N frigid day, February 6, 2000, when Guy silence. You don’t need to care a fig for mountains or climbed to the summit of Mounta useful Lafayette context. For that reason, the authors explain that Part New England woods to be utterly caught up in this in New Hampshire’s White Mountains and Laura Waterman co­authored many books sat down among the rocks toFive, die. Losing “Mountains as places for recreation: Since 1950,” will

quiet, stunning saga.” G with her husband Guy Waterman, includ­ the Garden is the memoir of a woman who ing Wilderness Ethics, Backwoods Ethics, and Bill McKibben, author of Wandering Home was compelled to ask herself not“How could offer the same degree of generalization as the earlier parts. Forest and Crag. She has published her work I support my husband’s plan to commit in various literary magazines and journals th e suicide?” It is an intimate examinationIn support of this reluctance, they quote historian Barbara “Laura and Guy Waterman set the wilderness ethics’ bar including Appalachia and Vermont Magazine. of intricate and dark family histories and She lives in East Corinth, Vermont. high, not just for themselves, but for the rest of us who L OSI NG a marriage that tried to transcendTuchman them. as saying, “The historian fifty or a hundred years Laura’s father was the pre­eminent

spend time in wild places. Learning that Guy was be ­ Garden scholar of Emily Dickinson, Thomashence H. will put them in a chapter under a general heading we sieged by his own demons does not diminish the power Johnson, whose brilliance washave muddied bynot yet thought of.” of their message to live lightly on the land, but rather it the alcoholism. And Guy Waterman lost two of Garden his sons (one son appears in Jon Krakauer’s gives it depth and humanity.” bestselling book Into the Wild). In LosingLaura the Waterman repeats Tuchman's caution in her preface Mary Margaret Sloan, president, American Hikers Society Garden, Laura Waterman comes to terms with her husband’s long depressionto andthe the second edition, published in 2003, but then states, The Story of a Marriage complex nature of a gifted, humorous man Jacket design by David Bullen who was driven by obsession, self­absorp­ Jacket art © CORBIS, by R. D. Sanders, White tion, and a strange lack of confidence. Her Mountain National Forest account of her own marriage, seen as idyllic Author photograph © Carolyn Hanson but riddled from within, is nonetheless a love story, a portrait of an intense and Foreword Shoemaker Hoard unusual marriage, and an affirmation A Division of Avalon Publishing Group, Inc. of life after loss. Distributed by Publishers Group West Shoemaker Hoard, Publishers Visit us at www.shoemakerhoard.com LAURA WATERMAN to the 2019 Edition of

but he devoted serious attention to the Forest and Crag Adirondacks too, becoming a winter 46er over the course of just three years, finishing on Marcy By Tony Goodwin #211 in March of 1971. According to Laura, he had set as a goal to climb all the High Peaks in Reprinted with permission winter before ever climbing in another season. Laura’s companions on those hikes included several I knew well, by reputation or with whom I’d hiked. Listed on the Giant Mountain hike, climbed via Bottle Slide, was the name Chuck “Nevertheless, it is hard to resist...not at least to make the Loucks, a renowned mountaineer who, just attempt to understand the changes of the last fifteen years.” a couple of years later, lost his life in a leader So, while keeping the caution about generalizing recent fall on the Jensen Ridge of Symmetry Spire in events in mind, I will introduce this new edition with some the Tetons. Also on that Giant hike was Harry brief assessments of how the changes since 1989 fit in with Eldridge #90, former Executive Director of previous patterns of change in the Northeast mountains. My North Country School who, together with his personal connection to the mountains began by spending boyhood friend, Roger Loud #125, were two of every summer in Keene Valley, just down the road from the my earliest mentors during my years teaching at Garden trailhead. We lived in a cabin my father had built in the school. Among many things alpine, Harry 1940 after having himself spent some or all of every summer also taught me bacon should be a part of every since 1919 in the Adirondacks. During those summers, he had mountain breakfast, even when tenting on the guided and built trails to Porter, Big Slide, and Giant, among MacIntyre ridge in February. As he prepared other peaks. Having completed ascents of the Adirondack 46 the morning repast for our intrepid students in 1940, my father naturally took me on hikes from an early on my first winter overnight I watched with age so that I also finished, in 1961. He continued guiding into bemusement as he unzipped the cook flap in his early seventies, while also expanding his assistance to hikers the floor of his pyramid tent, borrowed from his by editing maps and guidebooks. And as much as he saw it summer Andes expeditions, and poured bacon increase, I never heard him express any regrets or any desire grease directly into the snow. Who cared if a blizzard was raging outside. We had bacon. 6 | ADIRONDACK PEEKS Laura set before us a lunch generated from her exquisite garden, bordered by soaring phlox in bloom. For 27 years, she and Guy that hiker traffic should be limited. homesteaded off the grid a couple of miles At age sixteen, I officially joined the “family business” when from where I now sipped tomato soup and my father and I cut the trail to Gothics via Pyramid Peak. I munched freshly harvested vegetables. Our spent the rest of that summer and the two following summers conversation turned to the challenges facing so as crew and hut-master at Johns Brook Lodge. My observations many wilderness areas: exuberant (and often of the hikers passing by and my stay at the lodge created a ill-conceived) overuse, that was contributing to sort of “baseline” by which I can compare the changes in hiker crowded trails, summits, parking lots, and their accompanying environmental impacts. During their years living at Barra—the homestead they built after renouncing city life and corporate work—they produced important books on prudent wilderness use (Backwoods Ethics: Environmental Issues for Hikers and Campers, now in its third edition as The Green Guide for Low-Impact Hiking and Camping, and Wilderness Ethics: Preserving the Spirit of Wildness) as well as seminal works on the history of mountain exploration in our part of the world (the aforementioned Forest and Crag, and Yankee Rock & Ice: A History of Climbing in the Northeastern United States). Laura was now preparing for a modest book tour to promote her first attempt at fiction, Starvation Shore, about the fateful 1881 Lady Franklin Bay Expedition led by Lt. Adolphus W. Greely, the first American attempt to apply

numbers and attitudes since then. In 1974, I served as an Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK) “ridge runner,” part of the club’s response to the significant growth in the number of hikers as documented in “The Backpacking Boom” chapter of Forest and Crag. I later headed up the ADK’s first professional trail crew, which was the first concerted attempt to bring the then-current White Mountains standard of trail maintenance to the Adirondacks. My personal connection with Forest and Crag starts with Laura and Guy contacting my father to draw on his extensive knowledge of Adirondacks history. I was also able to direct Laura and Guy to a source for details on Charles Brodhead,

FALL 2019 | 7 science to Arctic exploration. I was halfway through this tense tale, which she artfully derived from extensive research into the diaries the first surveyor to traverse the High Peaks in 1797. When it the expedition members kept during their was finally published, I read Forest and Crag with considerable harrowing three-year struggle to survive. How interest, as it put my observations of change in the Adirondacks starkly different that crew lived as compared into a greater context. In nearly every time period, Forest and with Colin O’Brady’s experience during his Crag confirmed my sense that the Adirondacks lagged behind recent Antarctic traverse (as described elsewhere the White Mountains in mountain exploration and in the in this issue of PEEKS). building of a trail network. Laura had written so passionately about There is plenty of evidence for this claim. The Adirondacks’ preserving wildness and wilderness I thought highest peak, Mount Marcy, wasn't even recognized as the we’d start there. The topic is a hot one among highest peak in the state until 194 years after the first ascent those of us who have a love affair with the of Mount Washington. When hiker-caused damage to the Adirondacks. Forty years ago the 46ers environment was first noticed at the site of Madison Spring welcomed a dozen or so new members each Hut in the Presidentials in the 1880s, the Adirondacks barely year; the average finishing class in the past had any trails for hikers. Fast forward to the present era, and it three years has topped 700. Focused advertising was at least ten years after the first White Mountains cell phone on visiting the High Peaks via the I Love NY call for help before a similar call was made in the Adirondacks. initiative has succeeded beyond all expectations, Since my earliest connection to the mountains coincided but, as even the Department of Environmental with the backpacking boom, as documented in Part Five, I was Conservation will now admit, commensurate in a position to observe land managers change their strategies, investment in protecting the wilderness has not and hikers their behaviors, in dealing with increased use levels. kept up. Rangers report that search and rescue Trail work became more intensive, restrictions on camping takes so much of their time that hiker education were implemented, and hikers were also expected to follow new is sacrificed. Parking on the main access roads practices to preserve the “resource,” as we land managers call has become so chaotic that re-routing of the it. Planners who extended these trends in use levels between trails (Cascade, as a case in point) proved roughly 1969 and 1974 had great concerns because it appeared necessary. Laura has written extensively, for the numbers might again double in the next five years. In actual decades, on the ethos and ethics of wilderness. fact, use levels abruptly flattened out or even went down for the I knew she had strong feelings about what we next decade and a half. should be doing to preserve that benefit for Then, just after the first edition was published, a significant future generations. For her, education is key. number of new hikers and backpackers hit the trails. In the “We were all beginners once,” Laura said. “It’s Adirondacks, only the popular High Peaks Wilderness Area important to keep that in mind. It encourages saw more stringent regulations on camping, group size, and humility when we approach hikers who are fires. Although some had called for a permit system to restrict walking in the alpine vegetation or washing overall numbers, New York’s Department of Environmental their dishes in a stream.” There was so much Conservation decided simply to restrict the size of the parking ground to cover; I felt as if I was aiming a fire lots at the popular Garden and ADK Loj trailheads. The hose at her while we ate her lunch. immediate reaction was a reduction in use, but this time it Inevitably, our conversation drifted back to didn’t take fifteen to twenty years before the numbers again the memoir she had written and the questions began increasing. As a result, today we are in the midst of that ate at me. Guy had three sons from a first another sudden surge, this one seemingly driven as much by marriage. Two of the boys inherited their dad’s technology as anything else. passion for wilderness and moved to Alaska. When the Watermans finished Forest and Crag in 1989, Both disappeared, Johnny on an ill-fated solo few could have predicted the full effects that the electronic and traverse of Denali, and Bill, apparently into the communications revolution would have on society. Even harder wilds. These were crushing blows that would to predict would have been the effect on how those new hikers weigh heavily on Guy for the rest of his life. perceived their back­ country experience. By the mid-1990s, For three decades Laura and Guy lived off cell phones had become small enough and cheap enough to the grid, writing prodigious amounts, reading be increasingly common. With more phones in use and the the classics to each other by candlelight, truly network of towers expanding, one could make a call from some living a sustainable existence. When Guy, fairly remote areas. Carrying a cell phone provided a sense tormented by personal loss and depression, (often false, but increasingly less so) of security. At least as early decided to take his own life at the age of 67, as 1996, cell phones played a role in backcountry searches and in health still good enough that he could climb rescues. Now such use is the norm. Time will tell if Personal Mt. Lafayette in the dead of winter, Laura Locator Beacons and Spot Locators ultimately become as understood how clearly her husband wanted to get out of a life that had turned dark and she 8 | ADIRONDACK PEEKS chose to support his decision. For a year they prepared for his leave-taking and for her to common as cell phones in the backcountry. transition back to a more traditional home on Perhaps the more salient perception was the ability to go the grid near town. It had to be excruciating as into a remote area and yet remain in communication with the the days wound down, Yet, as Laura wrote in outside world. Soon there were stories (perhaps apocryphal) of Losing the Garden, that last year gave them the hikers calling their stockbrokers from the summit of Mount time to say goodbye to a deeply-shared life. As Marcy. Even more telling was an early report of a couple on the I read through her memoir, it seemed that the Adirondacks’ Cascade Mountain calling the front desk at their writing was a cathartic vehicle to re-discover hotel back in Lake Placid to ask for di­rections at an intersection. her “I” that had for so many years been “We”. Coupled with improved GPS technology, the mountains were Two years following Guy’s passing, Laura no longer “daunting terrible” and hiking had just become a and friends established the Waterman Fund to whole lot easier. No need to buy a map and guide or join a club support stewardship efforts for the mountains to become educated before setting off on an adventure. of the Northeast this couple had spent so Internet bulletin boards, digital photography, and social many years working to promote and protect. media have also helped to change hikers’ perceptions. On Nearly 100 grants have been awarded so far, internet bulletin boards, we can ask for advice, check on current representing just shy of a quarter of a million trail conditions, and post a report of our trip, making that trip dollars. The fund has been a consistent supporter seem more significant. Digital photography allows images of of education, trail maintenance, and research our adventures to be quickly shared (sometimes right from in the Adirondacks, including substantial the summit) with our “friends” on Facebook or other social assistance to the Adirondack Mountain Club’s media, introducing an aura of virtual re­ality to backcountry summit re-vegetation efforts in the High Peaks. adventures. The perceptual firewall between wilderness and Too soon, it was time for me to leave. I told civilization seems on the verge of collapse. her I would be honored if she would help me Increasingly easy access to the mountains has, of course, produce a piece for PEEKS. I did not know been on­ going ever since Darby Field first climbed Mount what shape it would take, or how we would Washington in 1642. First there were dirt roads, then railroads arrive at our destination. But wouldn’t it be fun to the general area, and then cars right to the trailhead on an to bushwhack it together! n ever-improving road system. Modern, lightweight equipment for both hiking and camping further eased the effort and brought more hikers. All of these changes in access and equipment had occurred by the original publication date of Forest and Crag in 1989. And it was before 1989 that the major conservation policies were implemented. So, while keeping in mind Barbara Tuchman’s caution on generalizing about recent events, it is not too much of a stretch to say that it has been electronic technology more than anything else that has caused or influenced the changes in both the numbers and patterns of use we have seen since 1989. It does seem that we have reached some sort of limit when it comes to communication that affects people’s decision whether to take a hike or pursue some other leisure-time activity. Perhaps the coming years will actually see a modest reduction in backcountry use as some will find that, having done a few climbs and posted their photos on the web, they are ready to move on. Then again, the numbers could continue to grow, providing both a new set of challenges for future land managers and some new categories for future historians.

Tony Goodwin, Keene, NY

Tony Goodwin has served as executive director of the Adirondack Trail Improvement Society for thirty years while also editing the 11th-to-14th editions of the Adirondack Mountain Club’s guide to trails in the High Peaks, now titled High Peaks Trails.

FALL 2019 | 9 Adirondack PEEKS may look different than it did 30 years ago. But stewardship is not a new idea From the Archives... for the 46ers now...and it wasn’t then.

Volume XXV, No. 2 — Fall/Winter, 1988-89

Where else can a grown man wallow in mud, play in stream beds, throw rocks all day and receive recognition for having all that fun?! I � /, � � On the more serious side are such I! reasons as giving something back to the wilderness, helping preserve our trails for � . , �. · - . -· · · · • , � . . , J future generations to enjoy, and finally, ADIRONDACK PEEKS experiencing the camaraderie from sharing V o l u m e XXV, No. 2 S e m i- A n n u a l Newsletter of the Adirondack Forty-Sixers, Inc. Fall/Winter 1988-89 hard work for a worthwhile cause with your fellow 46ers. — Ray Held #2007W

Trail work teaches my favorite teenager (son, Jon) a sense of values, responsibility, and public service. There’s no better group in the world than the active 46ers. — Jon E. Freckleton #1639 10 Years of 46er Trail Work

The most important reason to me is being able to work with a great group of people who always get the job done no matter what the weather or the job. I like working in the woods and giving a little back to the High Peaks that have given me so much. It is very satisfying to walk a trail and see that our work really does make it better. — Bill Embler #2308

18 | ADIRONDACK PEEKS On the Laying Down of Stones

By Ira Smith #1969

n a Memorial Day Weekend Satur- segment of trail when a column of young crew, and later that evening at the vespers Oday (May 1988), my son, Bert, and hikers marched forth at a stiff pace. We celebration during the annual meeting, I worked the trail from Heart Lake to hurriedly placed branches and brush I realized that there was something the summit of Algonquin Mountain. We in strategic places to direct the hikers powerfully symbolic in the laying of those joined a 46er crew that morning for our onto the stones. A couple of us pleaded heavy flat stones. The trampling boots of first taste of trail maintenance. with each successive individual but to hikers would no longer destroy the delicate Our immediate industriousness was no avail. They reacted erratically at the fabric of the forest carpet. Deep inside, I partially in response to an invigorating sight of the new walkway by morning chill and partially due to the trampling down our barricades instantaneous sense of camaraderie that and sloshing through the deep exists among 46ers. The late spring sun mud alongside. It looked like had begun to penetrate the heavy forest the derailing of a freight train. in patches, and promised to heat-soak our Perhaps they suffered from wet bones by midday. cement paranoia as they looked During the morning our mission on down at the fresh mud mortared some steep trail sections was to replace between the stones. At last, worn-out bridgework, which had been the final hiker, a teenage girl, placed years ago to retard erosion by succumbed to our frantic waving diverting water to the sides of the trail. and nervously tested the new Some members of the crew cut log pieces construction. A hearty cheer and from fallen trees for the new bridgework. a round of applause resounded (The “Forever Wild” designation prohibits off the mountainside and the the cutting of standing trees, even dead girl responded with a big smile. ones, for trail maintenance.) Other crew Her companions still didn’t members with grub hoes and shovels understand what had happened. removed the old logs and re-formed the The climbers who passed by trenches to accept the new replacements. took little notice of the hustling, After lunch we returned to the base of bustling work colony; they the mountain to lay down some stepping seemed unappreciative of our stones to curb destructive “urban sprawl” hard labor since their hearts and caused by hikers circumventing wet spots. minds were intent upon scaling As I took my turn gathering rocks, it felt the lofty summit of Algonquin. good to paw away the leaves searching for Some acknowledged our cheerful 46er trailwork, 2019. Photo credit: Lisa Crandall #11554 thick ones with flat sides. The precarious greeting without so much as a balancing of a large stone on my shoulder faint smile. Here we were, members of the was elated in spite of the back-breaking, while cautiously maneuvering through the “elite” Adirondack 46ers playing the role mud-splattering labor, the foregoing of the entangled ground debris was strenuous, of caretakers for the passersby as if they actual climb to the summit and the few but I felt a superb sense of accomplishment were our masters. Yet we were relaxed and signs of gratitude from those we served. I as the miniature Appian Way began to content, full of inner peace, for we were was full of the hallelujah spirit. n take form spanning the mud flats. enjoying a special kind of relationship, I was playing a tangible part in one that is based on extensive common reversing the synergistic process between experience and a deep joint commitment man and nature. I was undoing what to a preponderant set of values. I love to hear other people’s experiences should not have been done and injecting The climbers were the unenlightened, of climbing the 46 and I love to tell my own a functional interface with a touch having not yet had a chance to reap the full stories. of artistry and craftsmanship which harvest. We had scaled so many summits Protecting the Adirondacks by keeping complements nature. Although there was that the mountain experience has become people on one trail rather than having them little time for serious visiting, there was a internalized, embedded in our very being. destroy more of the forest trying to make lot of chit-chat with an air of good humor. Without physically going there, we could their own trails is certainly worthwhile. Everyone worked with a sense of mission. visit the mountaintop every day. — Nancy Kelsey We had just finished paving one That day as a member of the 46er trail FALL 2019 | 19 Mountain Vignettes

20 | ADIRONDACK PEEKS Sunrise rainbow over Algonquin, viewed from Cascade. Photo credit: Brian Twardy

FALL 2019 | 21